Union County, SD Biographies.....Dolan, John 1840 - 
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Joy Fisher http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00001.html#0000031 February 20, 2022, 3:26 am

Source: MEMORIAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD OF Turner, Lincoln, Union and Clay Counties, South Dakota. (1897)
Author: Geo. Ogle & Co.

JOHN DOLAN is one of the leading f farmers of Union county wherein he is a large
land owner. His real-estate amounts to 640 acres, the home farm being in section 5
of Prairie township, which is well-improved in every particular and forms a home of
great comfort and even luxury. In the accumulation of this fine property much credit
is due Mrs. Dolan, who has borne a fair share in the good management from which it
has resulted.

Mr. Dolan was born in county Kilkenney, Ireland, in 1840, and grew to manhood in the
old country. When he landed in America, which was in 1864, he immediately located in
Poughkeepsie, N. Y., where he found employment working by the day. After two years
spent there he came further west to Wisconsin where he stayed a short time and then
went to Dubuque county, Iowa, where he worked for a farmer by the month. We next see
Mr. Dolan settled on his homestead in Union county, on which he located in 1872. The
land was nothing but raw prairie and there was but one house to the north of his
claim. Little claim shanties dotted the prairie here and there, but no improvements
of a permanent character were to be seen. Mr. Dolan’s first place of abode and
shelter was a “dug out” and a frame shanty later took its place. A part of the above
is still standing and its presence recalls many memories of the hardship and
privation the early settlers of the locality endured in the pioneer days. In this
first primitive home he moved his wife and two children, and with part of the $300
in money which he brought with him he purchased a yoke of cattle and started in
breaking up his land. The first year he broke forty acres and put in a crop; then
came the grasshopper plagues and hailstorms which destroyed the result of his labor
and left him almost penniless. Mr. Dolan knew no such word as fail, however, and
kept diligently at his work with an indomitable will, knowing that it could not
always be so. The wiseness of this prediction is shown in his success as a farmer
and stock-raiser which occupation he has followed exclusively. His present farm of
640 acres is composed of the homestead in section 5 of Prairie township, 160 acres,
a quarter section in section 4 and the south half of section 33. Four hundred and
twenty acres are under cultivation, and besides the fine buildings on the homestead,
which includes a complete set of structures used in carrying on the business of the
estate, there is another good building on the farm to the north. His life has been
one of activity from the start, and he has been closely identified with the progress
of the county as a whole, taking a particular interest in any schemes devised for
the advancement of the welfare of the community and especially the locality where he
resides. He justly deserves the title of an all around prominent man, and is held in
high esteem and respect by his neighbors. As a member of the school board he has
taken much interest in the establishment of good schools, and for a dozen years
served as a director. He has also been a road supervisor for the past eight or nine
years, and politically is independent, casting his vote for the best man regardless
of which political party he is a candidate of.

To the good wife who has been of such material assistance to him in making life
successful, our subject was married in 1868. Mrs. Dolan w.as formerly Miss Mary
Patterson and is a native of the state of New York. Her father, Ned Patterson, now
deceased was one of Illinois and Wisconsin’s early settlers. Mr. and Mrs. Dolan are
the parents of a bright, intelligent and interesting family of eleven children, on
whom have been bestowed the following names: Annie, Edward, Maggie, Mary, William,
Frank, Sarah, Alice Bernadette, Joseph and Geneva; one child died in infancy. They
are ardent Catholics and members of St. Joseph's church of Prairie township, in
which Mr. Dolan has been an active man from its start. He is generous, honest and
upright, and one of Union county’s wealthiest citizens.


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